THE MYSTERIES OF THE BAIKAL.
The Angara is cold as ice all the summer through, so cold, indeed, that to bathe in it is to court inevitable illness, and in winter a sled drive over its frozen surface is made in a temperature some degrees lower than that prevailing on the banks. This comes from the fact that its waters are fresh from the yet unfathomed depths of the Baikal, which during the five short months of summer has scarcely time to properly unfreeze. In winter the lake resembles in all respects a miniature Arctic Ocean, having its great ice hummocks and immense leads, over which the caravan sleds have to be ferried on large pieces of ice, just as in the frozen North. In winter, too, the air is so cold in the region above the lake that birds flying across its icy bosom sometimes drop down dead on the surface. Some authors say that seals have been caught in the lake of the same character as those found in the Arctic seas; for this assertion I have no proof. An immense caravan traffic is carried across the frozen lake every season between Russia and China. To accommodate this the Russian postal authorities once established a post house on the middle of the lake, where horses were kept for travelers. But this was discontinued after one winter, when an early thaw suddenly set in, and horses, yemschliks and post house all disappeared beneath the ice, and were never seen more. In summer the lake is navigated by an antiquated steamer called the General Korsakoff, which ventures out in calm weather, but cannot face the violent storms and squalls that sometimes rise with sudden impetuosity. Irkutskians say, indeed, that it is only upon Lake Baikal and upon this old hull that a man really learns to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast the body on shore.
Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200 miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000 feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.
Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees Réaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and Buriats.--Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition.
TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.
An interesting example of sand-drift occurs near Wellington Bay, on Lake Ontario, ten miles from Pictou. The lake shore near the sand banks is indented with a succession of rock-paved bays, whose gradually shoaling margins afford rare bathing grounds. East and West Lakes, each five miles long, and the latter dotted with islands, are separated from Lake Ontario by narrow strips of beach. Over the two mile-wide isthmus separating the little lakes, the sand banks, whose glistening heights are visible miles away, are approached. On near approach they are hidden by the cedar woods, till the roadway in front is barred by the advancing bank, to avoid which a roadway through the woods has been constructed up to the eastern end of the sand range. The sand banks stretch like a crescent along the shore, the concave side turned to the lake, along which it leaves a pebbly beach. The length of the crescent is over two miles, the width 600 to 3,000 or 4,000 feet.
Clambering up the steep end of the range among trees and grapevines, the wooded summit is gained, at an elevation of nearly 150 feet. Passing along the top, the woods soon disappear, and the visitor emerges on a wild waste of delicately tinted saffron, rising from the slate-colored beach in gentle undulation, and sleepily falling on the other side down to green pastures and into the cedar woods. The whole surface of this gradually undulating mountain desert is ribbed by little wavelets a few inches apart, but the general aspect is one of perfect smoothness. The sand is almost as fine as flour, and contains no admixture of dust The foot sinks only an inch or two in walking over it; children roll about on it and down its slopes, and, rising, shake themselves till their clothing loses every trace of sand. Occasionally gusts stream over the wild waste, raising a dense drift to a height of a foot or two only, and streaming like a fringe over the steep northern edge. Though the sun is blazing down on the glistening wilderness there is little sensation of heat, for the cool lake breeze is ever blowing. On the landward side, the insidious approach of the devouring sand is well marked. One hundred and fifty feet below, the foot of this moving mountain is sharply defined against the vivid green of the pastures, on which the grass grows luxuriantly to within an inch of the sand wall. The ferns of the cedar woods almost droop against the sandy slope. The roots of the trees are bare along the white edge; a foot or two nearer the sand buries the feet of the cedars: a few yards nearer still the bare trunks disappear; still nearer only the withered topmast twigs of the submerged forest are seen, and then far over the tree tops stands the sand range. Perpetual ice is found under the foot of this steep slope, the sand covering and consolidating the snows drifted over the hill during the winter months. There is something awe-inspiring, says the correspondent of the Toronto Globe, in the slow, quiet, but resistless advance of the mountain front. Field and forest alike become completely submerged. Ten years ago a farm-house was swallowed up, not to emerge in light until the huge sand wave has passed over.